[Adding Drivers to Recovery Environment]

How do you boot into the Recovery?

I boot the slipstreamed install disk and then select "Repair your computer" from the 1st screen

Since I added the AHCI drivers to my slipstreamed SP1 disc I expected that it would be able to see my raid1 drive, but it does not see it unless I add drivers (the same drivers that I added with vLite).

then after adding ahci drivers I can see the Vista install that I want to repair.

I want to have a repair disk that requires a little intervention as possible.

Thanks, Lowcarb

[Adding Drivers to Recovery Environment]

I slip streamed SP1 into my Vista Business x86 and added AMD AHCI drivers.

I've checked the system that was create and vLite shows that the drivers were indeed added.

When I boot this disk the initial recovery environment though does not show my hard disk drive (raid using ahci driver). and it asks if I want to load drivers.

Shouldn't integrating those drivers with vLite have solved this for me? Is there something else I need to do to make the drivers active?

Thanks Lowcarb

[Integration of AMD / ATI SB7XX textmode RAID / AHCI drivers on an XP]

I got XP loading AHCI and then RAID.

There must have been something bad in the existing install (possibly through all the aborted boots and swapping between raid and ahci mode)

It eventually broke and I had to restore from a backup.

Once I had restored I was able to complete a repair install after loading the F6 drivers from usb floppy.

Getting the drives back into RAID 1 mode was less than easy with AMD RaidXpert. Probably the least intuitive utility I've touched in a long time.

Now my remaining problem is that the IDE CD drive is not recognized.

[Integration of AMD / ATI SB7XX textmode RAID / AHCI drivers on an XP]

Well I tried A, B, C AND D (put drive in SATA IDE Mode)

The short story is:

XP Install loads up to the point where it is configuring the install registry and hangs at

Windows XP Professional Setup


Please wait while setup initializes your Windows XP configuration




Initializing configuration...

if hit the power switch once lightly the Initializing configuration... message at teh bottom of the screen changes to

Loading information file hivesft.inf

and the machine powers off

This happens no matter how the drives are configured (raid, ide, ) and even if everything is unplugged from all usb devices and legacy support is turned off in BIOS.

The install process has scrambled things to the point where I can't boot up under IDE mode as before. All restore points have been lost so I can't to a restore from the recovery console.

There comes a time when all operating systems face retirement. This might be the case for this hardware now with XP.

Still, at least one more thing I can try if I can get back to yesterdays state.

I'm copying a backup config from drives on another machine to a flash that I'll put back on this hardware. It's several hours to get it on the flash and then several more to restore it. Perhaps I'll get the box pack to the point where I can boot XP with the drive in SATA IDE mode.

If that happens my last ditch approach (should have thought of this earlier) unless you folks suggest something more enlightening, will be

Option E:

Put boot drive on SATA IDE channel

Put some other drive on an SATA AHCI channel.

Boot into windows and let windows discover new AHCI hardware and load the drivers.

This option may or may not require HOT unplugging, plugging of the SATA AHCI device in order to get windows to load without having ahcix86.sys loaded

[Integration of AMD / ATI SB7XX textmode RAID / AHCI drivers on an XP]

OK. Some progress report.

No luck with replacing the ahcix86.sys in c:\windows\system32\drivers with various versions.

Something got broken during the first reboot after adding them.

But I do have luck with getting the install disk to load.

I had been using an slipstreamed SP3 disk. It worked fine with an Nvidia based system but when I used the F6 to load the AMD drivers it would BSOD.

I've seen some other posts in my search for and answer, where the posters reported that strange results were caused by a bad install disk.

On a whim, I reverted back to my slipstreamed SP2 disk. It correctly accepts the F6 drivers and continues along to the install choices.

So it looks like I'm going to use Repair option to get the drivers loaded into XP.

BTW I'm using the drivers that came on the ASUS support disk. They are the latest version that is available from the AMD site also. Specifically, Microsoft Windows miniport driver 3.1.1540.127. The ahcix86.sys is dated 4/8/2009 2:46AM and is 186KB

Now here is the rub.

XP installer reports that the RAID1 logical drive is corrupt and refuses to install to it.

This is not totally unexpected as I've booted the drives in RAID, IDE and AHCI mode many times over the last few days trying to figure this out.

I'm open to suggestions and advice on how to clear this up.

BTW , this is a multiboot system so I can boot up another OS.

Lend your support to one of these options I'm considering, or suggest your own.

FYI, there are two WD750 drives configured as a RAID1 Logical Drive

Option A:

Boot RAID1 array into Win7.

Rebuild the logical drive using RaidXpert (AMD RAID management software)

BOOT XP Install disk, Install XP onto the RAID1 Drive

Option B:

Configure drives as AHCI in BIOS

Boot W7 with 2 individual AHCI connected drives. Run CHKDSK on each to clean up any error (schedule from W7)

BOOT XP Install disk, Install XP onto one of the physical drives partitions

Configure drives as RAID in BIOS

BOOT into XP

Rebuild the logical drive using RaidXpert (AMD RAID management software)

Option C:

Similar to option B but disconnect the 2nd drive

Configure 1 drive as AHCI in BIOS

Boot with 1 individual AHCI connected drives. Run CHKDSK clean up any error (schedule from W7)

Boot XP install disk.. Install XP onto one of the physical drives partitions

Hook up 2nd drive

Configure drives as RAID in BIOS

BOOT into XP

Rebuild the logical drive using RaidXpert (AMD RAID management software)

Option D: Your sugestions

[Integration of AMD / ATI SB7XX textmode RAID / AHCI drivers on an XP]

Can you boot at IDE mode still?

Yes

Copy over the good ahcix86.sys to system32\drivers again.

Ya. That was my first thought. Did that. (copied over the driver from the v 9.4 catalyst package you recommended) No difference, still reboots

I was so excited when it booted after I first did the procedure.

Only thing I can think of is maybe I didn't use the driver version that I thought I did.

I'm not about to ask windows to restore to a previous state. I'm not sure what that might do to my non-raid'ed drives.

I guess I'll inventory how many different ahcix86.sys files I have and start swaping them one at a time to see how they each perform.

I'm a bit shocked though that a driver listed as 7xx family could be so picky about which version will work with the sb710.

Maybe I should have chosen a 790g/750 combo?

[Integration of AMD / ATI SB7XX textmode RAID / AHCI drivers on an XP]

Hi! I'm brand new to this forum, but sure glad I found it. I have a new ASUS M4A77TD-PRO motherboard with AMD 770/SB710 chipset. I was surprised to find no floppy drive capability on the mobo, and went looking for a way to install XP on a RAID set. All roads seemed to point to nLite slipstreaming, so that's what I have tried, but with no success until I read this forum. I think the problem stems from the version of RAID "F6" software provided on the mobo support DVD. When I read about Fernando 1's package he provided (see his post above), I downloaded it and tried it, and it worked! I presume the 9-4 and 9-6 he refers to are the Catalyst version numbers, and I don't know which Catalyst version would have the files on my support DVD. I do note that the latest Catalyst version is 9-8, and at the risk of burning another coaster, I may try that one. But the 9-4 version provided by Fernando works, and I just wanted to pass that info on for anyone else out there who may be struggling with this mobo.

Incidentally, the RAID drivers that didn't work came from this folder on the DVD:

Drivers\RAID\Driver\WinXP\x86

I also ran the "makedisk" utility and wrote the results to a local hard drive and used that folder for the slipstreaming, but that didn't work either.

Thanks for your Post Actor. I'm starting to suspect the drivers on the ASUS support CD also.

I'm trying to get RAID 1 to work on a new M4A785TD-V EVO useing my previous install that was on a Nvidia chipset MB.

I can boot into XP with the drives in SATA IDE mode.

If they are in SATA AHCI or SATA RAID 1 mode then XP reboots right after the flash screen.

I used the method offered by CDOB above of booting up in IDE mode, copying over the "ahcix86.sys to system32\drivers. " and importing the registry code.

I then set the drives to AHCI mode and reboot.

I thought I had succeeded as I booted into XP

As expected the OS looked for drivers again. UNFORTUNATELY I had the ASUS CD in the drive. So instead of pulling from the floppy I made, it pulled from the CD.

Next reboot I'm back to XP failing to load. UGGH!

So I guess I'm going to restore to a prior state and then try again.

Lowcarb